Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a small-sized tape player for operating a magnetic head and a pinch roller by the attraction of a solenoid and, more particularly, to a tape player which is enabled to perform not only the playing (or recording) operation and the stopping operation but also the cue or review operation by the drive of the single solenoid.
Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, there has been developed a small-sized and simplified tape player as one for playing (or recording) a micro cassette tape.
One of the tape players of this kind is equipped with one motor and one solenoid as a drive source. In this tape player, reel bases for winding the tape are rotationally driven by the single motor, and a pinch roller and a magnetic head are adapted to be brought into and out of the positions to face the tape by the action of the solenoid. When the solenoid is energized for its attraction, more specifically, the pinch roller P is brought into contact with a capstan 1 rotating at a constant speed, as shown in FIG. 4, so that the tape held inbetween is fed at the constant speed, and at the same time a magnetic head H is moved forward to contact with the tape thereby to accomplish the playing or recording operation. When the solenoid is deenergized and released from its attraction, on the contrary, a head base 2 is retracted by the force of a spring or the like so that the pinch roller P and the magnetic head H are completely disengaged from the tape If the motor is turned at a high speed to rotate the reel bases when both the pinch roller P and the magnetic head H come apart from the tape, the fast forwarding and rewinding operations of the tape are conducted. By switching the energization and deenergization of the solenoid in that way, the four modes of playing, recording, fast forwarding and rewinding can be selected.
In addition to the above-specified four operation modes, incidentally, the functions of the tape player may require the cue and review modes and further the fast erasing mode. In order to realize these three additional operation modes, as shown in FIG. 5, the head base is slightly retracted to the position where the pinch roller P is slightly apart from the capstan 1 and where the magnetic head H is in light contact with the tape. In this state, the reel bases are rotated at a high speed to forward the tape fast (for the cue operation) or to rewind the same (for the review operation) to read the recording tape. If the erasure is conducted by the magnetic head H in the state of FIG. 5, on the other hand, it can be done at high speed.
In the case of the mechanism in which the head base 2 is driven by the attraction of the single solenoid to move the pinch roller P and the magnetic head H, however, it is impossible to stop the head base 2 temporarily at the position of the intermediate operation mode shown in FIG. 5. This makes it necessary to add another solenoid for switching the operation to the cue and review operation modes shown in FIG. 5 so that the tape player has its construction complicated and its production cost raised. It would completely obstruct the size reduction of the single-motor and -solenoid tape recorder especially for the micro cassette to add another solenoid to the tape recorder.